Insurance premiums in Mayo
Alan Dillon highlighted a 300% rise in premiums for local businesses despite insurance reform efforts. The Taoiseach said recent measures may help and noted that motor insurance prices are now below last year’s level.
The programme for Government commits to delivering insurance reform to reduce premiums and to increase the availability of insurance in Ireland. While I welcome the Government's ongoing efforts on the implementation of the action plan for insurance reform, I was contacted recently by Delphi Resort and the Health Hub gym, in Swinford, which have excellent safety records but have seen their premiums increase by 300% since 2019. Insurers are simply not passing on the benefits of recent reform to liability insurance policyholders. To restore faith in the process, we need to do everything in our power to ensure that incumbent insurers pass on the benefits and, ultimately, drive liability insurance premiums down to an affordable level.
Comment on this
I think the Minister of State, Deputy Fleming, announced something recently that may impact positively the situation to which Deputy Dillon referred and the people to whom he referred. That should help. According to the CSO consumer price index data for May 2022, the price of motor insurance is 10.9% lower than in May 2021. No one in the Dáil has raised that. Members have raised all the increases, but no one has raised that fact. The last time motor insurance prices were at that level was in October-November 2013. There we are.